Family Resemblance
by joudama
Summary: He wanted to discover every feeling she was hiding . Written for areyougame, with the prompt of 'He wanted to discover every feeling she was hiding' for Snow and Lightning. Slight game spoilers.


**Title:** Family Resemblance **  
Author:** joudama **  
Fandom:** Final Fantasy XIII  
**Rating:** PG **  
Warnings:** none **  
Word count: **1332 **  
Prompt:** Snow/Lightning: Obsession - He wanted to discover every feeling she was hiding **  
Summary:** It's not his fault she looks so much like her sister.**  
A/N: **This contains spoilers for FF13, so you've been warned. Not massive spoilers like you'd get from the wiki page, but still. Also, Snow calls Lightning "nee-san," big sister, all through what I've played so far, but it's the kanji for "sister-in-law". Which fits, what with him and her sister Sera being engaged. Since this fic is kinda in English, I'm having him refer to Lightning as "Sis."

Written for "areyougame" on insanejournal.

--

She had laughed when I asked her what her real name was. That's a step up from her punching me in the face, but hey, I doubt Sera's sister would punch a guy when he's damn near bedridden. Still, it was nice to see Sis smile. And not yell at me not to call her that. Things are definitely getting better between us. I'm not all that sure what's changed her mind, but...she's changing.

She smiles a lot like Sera. ...too much like Sera. It was almost like Sera was smiling at me, and...

And I must've hit my head harder than I thought in that fall.

"Ask Sera," she said with that faint smile, and y'know, I'm only human. So I felt kind of like shit right then for my brain--or somethin' else, maybe--focusing like it did on her mouth. It's weird, to feel so glad on the one hand that she's finally starting to think maybe we can do this, maybe we _can_ save Sera, but on the other hand to be wondering what that mouth would taste like, and then on the other hand, or something, that's too many hands, feeling like shit because she's _Sera's sister_.

...She's gonna kill me one of these days, I just know it.

--

It was a shock, when Hope calls Sis "Light." And doesn't get the tar beaten out of him for it. It's...it's kinda weird, I guess, the way Sis changes around that kid. She's not exactly the most comforting or feminine of women, not like Sera was. Sis is pretty hard ass, actually. And has one of those faces that you can't read most of the time--she was a soldier and it shows.

But she's _different_ around that kid.

On the one hand, I'm glad, because he needs someone to look out for him. It's my fault he doesn't have a mother to do it any more.

But what got me was that she had given him her knife. Sera gave her that knife, as a good-luck charm, and she gave it to Hope...and lets him call her "Light," when she was still looking ready to punch me for calling her "sis."

I shouldn't be jealous of a fourteen-year-old boy, but it's not like I get it, either. It's not like I think there's something going on with them--I mean, that's kinda...I don't think she's into into _anybody_, let alone _kids_--but she smiles around him, when he's trying his best and fumbling along, and she normally _never_ smiles, and why does her smile have to look so much like _Sera's_?

I wonder what he did, to get on her good side like that, and why she's so protective of the kid. She was willing to almost abandon Sera when she found out Sera was a l'Cie, but Hope--

Maybe they bonded over how they both hated me or something? I mean, she did give him her knife and he did try to kill me with it and all, and Sis has punched me out how many times now?

Sometimes, looking at Sera's tear is the only thing that keeps me from losing my mind, but times like when I'm watching Hope nodding off to sleep and Lightning on guard but with that gentle look on her face when she watches him trying to stay awake, the one that makes her look so much like Sera that it _hurts_, that it makes me _wonder_--I wonder if maybe I _already_ lost it.

--

Sis being nice to me is weird. Weird in a good way.

Kind of.

Kind of because...yeah, it's nice to not be getting punched out all the time--she's got a mean hook for someone so delicate and small-looking--but it's like I can see traces of maybe the person she would have been, if she and Sera hadn't been orphaned. She's not one for encouraging words--Sis is more likely to slap someone and tell them to pull it together than she is to do anything else--but she's acting like she needs me to be the idiot she _had_ been snapping at me for before.

It's a mental 180 or something for me. But I kinda like the kinder, gentler side to Sis, now that she's finally sometimes letting it slip out, that she's not the self-contained, self-sufficient, I-hate-you-all soldier she seemed to be. I never would have expected it from her. Or for her to go around throwing Cures around, but she _does_.

I wonder what _other_ sides she's got hiding behind that stoic face.

--

I wonder if it's almost worse, since Sis loosens up that little bit with Hope. She was the first on her feet and running when Sazh's chocobo chick told us Hope was hurt, even ahead of me, and I had promised his mother I'd protect him. I swear, she literally burned through those caramel flans that got in the way so fast I'm shocked she didn't end up singeing herself, and she was right there in that fight with the Eidolon Alexander. She ran right in, sword out, in front of Hope, and kept her sword on it the whole time she was telling Hope what it was.

Sis is damned impressive when she fights. I don't think Sera could have fought to save her life, but Sis is...yeah.

I think it's worse, because then it really gets me to wondering--what made her that big hardass when it's obvious that she's got an actual _heart_ buried down there somewhere? A week or so ago, I'd have said the only heart she had was one she cut out of somebody in a jar on a desk or something. She's nicer now, kind of, for Sis, but--

I wonder what she's thinking, when she fights. I always want to make sure everyone is protected--too many people died because of me, so I'm going to make damned sure no one else dies by putting myself in the way--but she attacks full out, and the way she steps up to a fight, like she did with Cid, makes me think she likes it. Or doesn't want anything getting her the way of her and whatever she's trying to do.

I don't know what makes her so determined, what makes her fight so hard, and damn the world if it gets in her way.

I don't know, but I wish I did...although I'm kind of afraid to ask.

When Sera wakes up...I'll ask her.

Speaking of, I really need to ask Lightning how she got her Eidolon.

--

Sera and Lightning are so different. Sera was--IS--so uncomplicated, but Lightning is this big puzzle that I just can't figure out. And it's driving me nuts, itching at my brain, making it so sometimes when I try to think about Sera, and her smile, all I can see is Lightning's face and there I am, stuck trying to figure her out.

The more Lightning gets go me, the more I make myself think about Sera, the more I pull out Sera's tear to remind myself that Sera's still here. I've _got_ to, to keep myself going. I'm doing all this for Sera, so I can't--

Oh, yeah. Ligh--_Sis_--is gonna _kill me_ one day. And I'm sure Sera will help.

They are sisters, after all, and if Lightning is more like Sera than I thought, maybe Sera is more like Lightning than I thought.

...the two of them are going to be punching my lights out one day, and that thought shouldn't put the dopey grin on my face it has, and I can't help it getting bigger at Sis giving me that "You are brain damaged" look.

She's right, I am, and I'm looking forward to finding out just how alike those two really are.

Even if it gets me killed.


End file.
